


All sing in a minor key

by the_queenmaker



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Music, Alternate Universe - Pianist, Atlético Madrid, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-05 13:53:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6706858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_queenmaker/pseuds/the_queenmaker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Antoine didn't become a pianist strictly for the adulation (although there is that), but in between a very demanding musical curriculum and everyone else at the Vincente Calderon, it's <i>nice to be appreciated</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All sing in a minor key

**Author's Note:**

  * For [momentsinlove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/momentsinlove/gifts).



> Original inspiration is derived from [this post](http://actualmodel.tumblr.com/post/126244502008/one-of-my-neighbours-slipped-this-under-my-door).

"Okay, I change my mind," Maud says at last. " _This_ is the nerdiest thing you've ever bought." 

"Don't say that," Antoine scolds, waving her words away like smoke and then running his cloth-covered hands over the polished ebony wood. "You'll hurt her feelings." 

"Do you want us to leave you alone with her?" Theo asks pointedly, watching warily the way Antoine's fingers run between every key, brushing any residue away with the lightest of touches. 

Antoine shoots him a wounded look, but continues to work away, dusting down the legs and around the music shelf, propping up the top board and peering into the underside, looking for defects. There are none, of course. His siblings continue to watch him with uncomprehending fascination. 

When he's satisfied, Antoine adjusts the bench and sits down, staring at the lines of black and white in front of him. The inaugural piece on a new piano--his new _grand_ piano--has to be special. 

"Well?" His sister urges impatiently. "Play something then!" 

Antoine blinks and inhales slowly. Imagines that he is alone in the room. And then he lifts his hands, places them, and presses down. 

The sound emitted is clear and crisp, and the keys respond beautifully to his every touch. [Toccata and Fugue](https://youtu.be/20RhLjJNcEg) is normally played on an organ but, Antoine thinks, if he can make it sound beautiful on a piano, then he'll know it was worth the effort to insist on an actual grand piano ("an investment!" he'd proclaimed winningly to his parents) rather than a more sensible model. 

He only plays the first segment but when he finally glances up, Theo and Maud are looking at him with smiles on their faces. 

"Beautiful," Maud says proudly. Theo nods his agreement and Antoine's chest blooms with warmth. 

"Well." Antoine says, ducking his head sheepishly. "I hope everyone else feels the same way."

//

There are two conservatories in Madrid. The Santiago Bernabeu is the larger and grander of the two, boasting the most prominent class of rising (and more often than not, already established) classical musicians. If there is ever a movie score or performance with a featured name, you can be sure that name is an alumni of the Bernabeu.

Anyway, Antoine isn't going there. 

"You could have applied at least," Raphael says reasonably, as though he hadn't been scouted and courted by the other Madrid, thus completely escaping the agonizing process. 

"I wouldn't have gone anyway," Antoine replies, thinking of the long list of names in their current graduating class, and then the even longer list of names who had quietly emerged in other, smaller schools after a brief, unremarkable spell. "Plus, you know your application fee is like, three times as much as every other school." 

Rapha actually laughs out loud. "That sounds about right," he says, having the grace to sound at least a little sheepish. "Well, we'll be in the same city again. That's something." 

"Yeah." Antoine says, suddenly thinking about Madrid and concert halls and staring into a darkened audience, silent but with an air of expectation so thick it threatens to choke you. It doesn't hit him until after he hangs up the phone. He had wanted to make music his life ever since he could remember, and while mere enrollment in a school meant little in the grand scheme of things, he'd taken a significant step forward nonetheless. 

He goes to his room to practice. When his father calls him for dinner, the mood is oddly rushed, as though the nervous tension of his playing has somehow permeated the very air they breathe.

//

Vicente Calderon provides onsite housing for its first years, but the application process is so rigorous that Antoine takes one look at the thirty page form and decides that a thirty or forty minute ride on public transportation can't be that bad.

(He's wrong about this, of course, but by the time he realizes it, he'll have been wrong about so many other things that this one won't seem to matter quite as much.) 

The first apartment they visit is too small and the second one is too expensive, but the third one, embracing cliché, is perfect. It's the size and layout of a hotel suite; wooden floors, an air conditioning unit in the wall, and even a small crevice in the wall for clothing. The only and glaring irregularity is the ceiling, which sits low and slants in sharp corners, giving the place the strong impression of being more a large attic than an actual room. But the first thing Antoine sees is the open space in the middle of the room underneath a curve that would hug the roof of his piano perfectly, and makes up his mind in that moment. 

It's a testament to how much his family loves him that they all willingly contribute to helping him move into the fifth floor of a building without an elevator. 

"I love you all," Antoine says brightly when all is said and done and his bed and piano are assembled and perfect. 

"Never speak to me again." His brother says very seriously, trudging out the door. Their sister follows him, looking dead-eyed and exhausted. His father joins them after a final, satisfied sweep of the area. Eventually, even his mother concedes that there's little else for her to do. 

"Honestly, Tonie," she says, her mouth a thin, worried line. "If you ever want to live somewhere nicer--" 

"No, this is fine!" Antoine insists earnestly, putting his arms around her and hugging her reassuringly, swaying side to side as he does. "I can do this. I'm going to be amazing, mama, okay?" 

(If they're both a little misty-eyed when she finally pulls away to rejoin the rest of the family, that's no one's business but their own.)

//

His course list includes classes like music theory and sight reading, and Antoine walks into them not knowing exactly what to expect. By the end of the first day, he thinks he ought not to have worried. Classes are small and _engaging_ \--the kind of environment where two people could conceivably get into a fistfight over whether Haydn is better known for the content of his works or rather the sheer volume of them.

"You're not from here." Antoine glances up from his phone, startled. The speaker is a young man with a square jaw and a wide forehead, similar to him in age, but built like a truck. Antoine thinks he recognizes him from his music theory class, but he can't place a name to the face. He continues, "You can speak the tongue but your inflection is strange sometimes. All the time. Who are you?" 

"My name Antoine," he replies. "I am from France, but I spent four years in San Sebastian, and I'm sure that I do not have an accent." 

"Of course you do--it is a Basque one." He smiles, not unkindly, and Antoine suddenly connects it to a name and the sound of a cheeky four-chord melody tapped out spontaneously that sounded simultaneously like and unlike every pop song currently featured on every streaming service. He takes the seat across the table. "I'm Saul. Most foreigners come here for the other Madrid. How did we steal you?" 

"I liked it here more" Antoine replies. Saul's smile widens, as though Antoine had answered the question correctly. "Why do you ask?" 

"Curiosity." Saul says very seriously. "I did not like what you said about Giuseppe Tartini and I wanted to know what mind they allowed in here that does not appreciate all the complexities of the Devil's Trill." Antoine's jaw drops, a silent _are you serious?_ but Saul doesn't budge. 

"Well..." Antoine starts, and promptly loses the next two hours of his life to a debate that grows progressively more heated until random bystanders are being pulled into the conversation like it's some horrifying verbal black hole. He nearly misses his next class, and is in the middle of shoving his uneaten lunch into his book bag when Saul asks him for his phone number. 

"I had fun," Saul says simply, nodding toward the table where the conversation has barely diminished with their departure, and Antoine realizes with some surprise, so had he.

//

So it's that kind of environment everywhere, in the classrooms and hallways and dining areas, where discussion sits like firewood waiting for ignition. Almost every night, Antoine goes home and practices half out of stress and half out of sheer bewilderment. For the life of him, he can't seem to understand where it all comes from.

And then he attends his first performance class--the other half of his major and the entire reason he'd chosen Madrid in the first place. Antoine knows from the onset that this will be the most difficult of his classes, if the six rounds of auditions required for entry are any indication. He also knows that this will be the most rewarding. Nearly every graduate of this program goes on to achieve a disproportionate amount of success--the caveat, of course, being that you have to first survive. The greatest number of students to successfully pass the program in one year, Saul had told him, was four.

It takes place in a small, darkened auditorium. Onstage is a vast array of instruments, a grand piano at the center of them, and Diego Simeone sitting on its bench watching them all file in. Antoine had seen him once before, conducting a full orchestra, waving his arms furiously, looking as though he would start shouting at any second. Today, Simeone looks the opposite of that, quiet and considering, although still haggard and hulking in a vaguely threatening way. Antoine takes a seat in the second row, just outside his direct line of sight. 

"When I call your name," Simeone says in lieu of a greeting, "come up here and show everyone why you belong in this class." 

Small pockets of murmurs break out among the students, and Antoine goes cold. 

"This is a performance class," Simeone snaps, cutting through the noise like a knife. "If you're unable to do so here, then you can leave right now. Let's go. Rodriguez." 

A reedy young woman with long brown hair rises to her feet and ascends the stairs. Later, Antoine will learn that Simeone starts off his entry level classes the same way every year--by calling up one of his more advanced students to go first--but at the moment, he's completely unprepared for the voice that comes out of her. Even for someone who understands very little about opera or vocals, when she hits her final glass-shattering note, Antoine can't help but join the smattering applause that follows. 

Simeone reads the next name on his list, and Antoine's stomach drops back down somewhere between his knees. 

There isn't another vocalist in the entire group, but there's a small amount of strings, followed by a small number of woodwinds and even a solo french horn player. They were like a very small ensemble, Antoine realizes with a sinking heart, and going by the usual order, he would be last or near the end. Sure enough, practically the entire class goes by before Simeone finally calls his name. As he walks toward the stage, Antoine wonders briefly if he was the only pianist available, and whether or not they had hauled an entire grand in there just for him. He hopes not. 

He's still trying to decide between Rachmaninoff or Beethoven as he trudges up the stairs--and he's adjusting the height of the bench when he suddenly has the wild thought that perhaps there had been communication sent out regarding what pieces each of them should play and maybe he'd just missed it--but once he's seated and staring at the blank sheet rack before him, there's only one song in his head demanding to be played. 

Antoine lifts his trembling fingers and plays the lone opening note of [Fantasie Impromptu](https://youtu.be/B-HosIOod_A). And then the rest of it. 

He doesn't remember very much about what happens after that. When he was at San Sebastian, it had come up all the time, that he always fell too deep into the music and was too committed to his own style. "It doesn't have to be a bad thing," Claudio had told him, after hours in a practice room. "You'll want to add more dimension to your playing eventually though." Privately, Antoine always thought that was a very strange criticism to make, as his mind wasn't so much hyper-focused as it was far, far away.

He shuffles off to polite applause and Simeone mounts to stage shortly thereafter, staring into the small group. 

"Rodriguez," he says. "You're in the wrong class." 

His comments for every name after that go on for considerably longer. Antoine feels his heart sink when he realizes that there are few positive comments forthcoming. 

"Griezmann," Simeone says at last. "Bad posture. Uncomfortable to watch. Speed muddles the sound and it does not hide your mistakes. Work on this before next time, I expect improvement." The last sentence is addressed to the class at large, but Antoine can't help but take it a little personally. 

He goes out that night, and remains 'too drunk to practice' for the remainder of the weekend.

//

His assigned partner in compositions is a fellow named Jorge Resurrección Merodio, but when they meet up in a practice room for their first session, he balks at being addressed as such.

"Oh my god," Jorge says. "Please never call me that again--it's Koke, okay?" 

"O...kay?" Antoine starts, a bit uncertainly, because Koke is already sliding sheet music across the music tray--there must've been at least five pages, all printed neatly on staff paper. He asks incredulously "You did all of this in a week?" 

"Hm? Oh no, I only started this weekend." Koke replies, distracted as he drags his chair closer to the bench. Antoine continues to stare at him disbelievingly until Koke motions toward the sheet music again, expectant. Eventually, he tears his eyes away to focus on the music. 

He's not actually that good at sight-reading--and he'd excused himself, claiming that given his concentration, he shouldn't be expected to be. Thankfully, [Koke's composition](https://youtu.be/cfX1hx-rj-E) isn't too difficult to follow and, when Antoine actually listens to himself play, it actually sounds nice. Very subtle and sensitive, not at all what he expected from a fellow who looks like he spends more time in the gym than hunching over music software. 

"That's good," Koke says, breaking out into a wide smile even before Antoine reaches the end. "Much better than the computer preview." 

"You did all this in a weekend?" Antoine guesses, and laughs a little self-consciously. "I haven't even started on mine yet." 

"What do you mean started on yours?" Koke blinks. "We're partners, we submit together." 

"I'm...pretty sure that's not how it works," Antoine says, thinking back to the syllabus he hadn't read. 

"No, really. That's how they pair us off--one person to make and one person to refine." 

"Huh," Antoine says, still doubtful.

"Antoine. Griezmann. Grizi." Koke says very seriously, looking him right in the eyes with a wide, earnest expression. "Trust me on this okay? We'll ace the class." 

Well, Antoine isn't about to fight him on that point. He makes a mental note to double-check the syllabus later, just in case.

//

Despite the musical complexities of Chopin's [Revolutionary Etude](https://youtu.be/ZpuROwy_8mg), there remains a right way and a wrong way to perform it. Right now, Antoine is doing it the wrong way: smashing each key without nuance or technique. It's angry and stuttered, but all the notes exactly are where they should be.

_Why hadn't he been able to do that same thing in class._

He hadn't attempted this piece, but he knows it would have gone off the rails like it had today--an unexpected wrong note barreling into another wrong note, until the cacophony of noise cancels into silence, and suddenly Antoine's mind is racing too fast to comprehend the black and white landscape spread out before him. 

"If you cannot perform in this kind of environment, " Simeone had said to the class at large as he stared unflinchingly at Antoine, "then seriously consider your future in this field. It will not get easier." 

The memory claws into the forefront of Antoine's consciousness, fresh and stinging, and he never reaches the key change, ending the piece abruptly with a series of discordant, frustrated banging. He buries his face in his hands, breathing heavily and right on the cliff's edge of an existential crisis. 

A knock comes at the door. 

Antoine freezes, heart pounding in his ears, and in that moment he's filled with dread. He hadn't received much pushback in terms of noise complaints despite living in a residential area with families and such, but as his grandmother used to say, _un malheur ne vient jamais seul_. There's the sound of paper crinkling, and Antoine glances up just in time to see a sheet of paper appear on his side of the door. 

He staggers to his feet and trudges to the door, fearing the worst. The hallway is empty when he peers out the peephole and whatever he expects the note to read, it isn't:

_I humbly request to the pianist:  
Liebestraum no.3 in A-flat_

Something unlocks in Antoine's chest, a rush of relief, gratitude, or something warmer.

He turns the piece of paper over in his hands a few times, but there's no signature or room number indicated anywhere. So Antoine opens all the windows anyway, just in case. It's not the impermeable silence he's used to. There's a night breeze blowing outside and the distinct sound of traffic in the distance, but Antoine doesn't feel put off by any of it. 

It feels natural, this atmosphere, and that's how Antoine plays it. 

He knows [Liebestraum](https://youtu.be/XsxDH4HcOWA) from memory. _Everyone_ knows Liebestraum from memory, it's one of those pieces like Moonlight Sonata or Chopin's Grand Polonaise Brillante, where the melody is familiar enough to hold a child's teaspoon attention span, but whose arrangements were still easy enough to play even for smaller hands. Even so, he rarely plays the slower pieces for show, even knowing that those tended to be more popular, because being able to master and present difficult technique had always been the goal as far as he had been concerned. 

In the midst of playing, Antoine realizes, he hasn't listened to himself play in a long time. It's something to consider, that the entirety of the piece goes by with the therapeutic value of one long exhalation. 

The last note dies away like a caress. 

For a moment, Antoine sits in the silence, breathing in the ambience, music still ringing in his ears. Then he hears the sound of someone clapping.

//

He plays it in class, just like that.

"Griezmann," Simeone says at the end, looking him right in the eye. "That was good."

//

Saul finds him as he's exiting the auditorium, still flushed and bouncing with praise.

"Simeone's classes are always open door," Saul tells him as they walk into the sunlight. He smiles deferentially. "I've been coming here to listen since I was a child." 

"Oh yeah?" Antoine says, unwillingly flashing back to the week prior. "Uh. Were you here last week too?" 

"Yes," Saul replies simply, and nothing else. 

"I see." The back of Antoine's neck heats up like an iron. 

"Most of the ones who mess up as badly as you did don't show up again." Saul adds conversationally. "But you did. That's something." 

"Right." Antoine says, and then is unable to stop himself from adding, "I think I did better this time." 

"You did." Saul agrees easily. "But Cholo was always going to be kinder to you." 

"What." 

"Most of the students here are ensemble players," Saul explains. "Soloists like you are difficult to come by and difficult to retain. It wouldn't be good for anyone if he destroyed your confidence in your first year." Antoine stares at him. Saul glances back. "I have been here for a very long time." 

"I hadn't thought of it that way," Antoine says honestly. He had chosen the Calderon because of their success with concert pianists, the program that existed even before Simeone became its director, and he tells Saul as much. 

"And that's fine." Saul replies, lips quirking. "Just remember that Cholo has just as many reasons for wanting you to succeed. So he won't ever tell you how terrible you are--unless you fuck up as badly as you did last week." 

Antoine winces. "Really?!" 

"It's the least I can do." Saul says with absolute sincerity.

//

There's a note taped to Antoine's door when he arrives back at his apartment:

_If the pianist will oblige me a second time  
I humbly request [Chopin's Nocturne Op.9 No.2](https://youtu.be/tV5U8kVYS88)  
for the finale of tonight's practice._

It brings a smile to his face that doesn't fade for the better part of the evening. He does arrive at Chopin eventually, but not before running through the full gamut of muted and melancholic songs--including pieces from movie soundtracks he knows only by ear.

He's never done this before. His family had always been terribly lenient with his music, caring little about what he played, so long as it was him who was sitting on the bench. After he went to San Sebastian, it became far more about the technical pieces and pushing himself to the limits of his capabilities. Feeling, they had told him, could come later. 

Because, Antoine realizes, there's no way to teach someone how to build an atmosphere with sound or how to lift their hand so the last note fades away like a candle getting snuffed out. He had been playing from the hands for so long, that it had taken a stranger's request for him to remember that music is for the ears. 

It's very late at night by the time he has this epiphany. He goes to close the window but, still feeling excited from the events of the day and maybe just a tad bit reckless on top of that, Antoine leans out of it, just so. "Hey," he calls out, just loud enough to be heard. "Thanks for listening." A pause. "My name is Antoine." 

He doesn't expect a response, but even so, he is a little disappointed.

//

Simeone's office looks like it belongs on the top floor of a high-rise rather than the west wing of a conservatorium. It's completely austere, no plaques on the wall or bookshelves stuffed with paper. There's Simeone's desk, Simeone's chair, and _nothing else_.

"What do you want, Griezmann?" His voice echoes just so, and Antoine is almost certain that the effect is intentional. "Are you unhappy with my comments yesterday?" 

Antoine starts a weak affirmative, but then he notices Simeone watching him, almost challengingly. He changes his mind. "Yes." 

"Allegro is capped at 168," Simeone says. "If Shostakovich intended for [his piece](https://youtu.be/Vk3sII8T-vY) to be played at 180, he would have named it so." 

"But," Antoine presses. "I didn't make a mistake." 

"You better not be, at this stage," Simeone retorts. "But your shape was shit and you couldn't even retain the tempo--sometimes you dropped as low as 160. Piano Concerto No. 2 is supposed to be played with an orchestra, how the hell is anyone suppose to conduct with you running in front like that?" 

Antoine starts to protest again, but finds he has nothing to say to that. 

"Calderon has produced other talents before you," Simeone says. "Better, worse, it doesn't matter. If you are here, then you are already individually excellent. You should be working on your weaknesses here so you don't get eviscerated out there."

 _Eviscerated?_ Antoine almost refutes him on that point, but then he remembers. There is precedent. 

"Good." Simeone sits back. "Is that all?" 

"No," Antoine says. He thinks he's beginning to understand how this is supposed to work. "I'll work on my tempo and intonation. Is there anything else?" 

Simeone smiles.

//

The entire senior class goes on a field trip to Turin, which is how Antoine lucks into an early weekend with hours and hours before any place worth going opens their doors--so he goes home. Usually he stays at the conservatory’s practice rooms until well after dark, but he doesn't quite realize how irregular his hours have become until he's about to ascend the stairwell and realizes two things. One, that the wall behind the railing is in fact a bright flaming red and two, that he apparently shares a building with one of the most beautiful human beings he has ever laid his eyes upon.

He means that in the most traditional sense: a finely-sculpted face, deep eyes, and a charming dash of freckles all across his nose. If his face were a musical note, it would be a high C, and Antoine realizes with some distress that he does in fact still blush a blotchy, burning red. 

They go up the stairs one right after the other, Antoine foregoing his normal two-steps-at-a-time pattern to keep pace just ahead of the stranger, trying to think of a conversation starter, but nothing comes. And then it works out all on its own when, one flight from his own floor, the footsteps behind him slow down to a halt, and Antoine looks back to see the stranger fiddling with keys to the apartment right in front of the stairs-- _the unit right underneath Antoine's_. 

"Oh my god," Antoine exclaims, bashfulness forgotten as he hops back down the steps. "Is it--are you...?" 

The stranger spins around, startled. Perhaps it isn't him after all, but at this point Antoine is in too deep and he needs to know. "Or," Antoine amends quickly, "maybe someone you live with? I'm sorry, I live upstairs--" he points "--and I play the piano. " The other blinks and then, like the sun peering shly from behind a cloud, a smile spreads across his face. 

"No, I live alone," he says. "You're Antoine?" 

"Yes!" 

"I'm Fernando." He holds out his hand and Antoine takes it eagerly, noting with interest that he's exactly eye level with the dip in Fernando's shoulder. 

"I thought you were older," Antoine blurts out, thinking of the language of the two notes and how incongruous Fernando is with the lonely soul he had imagined who would know of and want to hear quiet, gentle piano music. "Like, an old man." 

Fernando snorts a little and makes a grand, sweeping gesture over himself. 

"No, you're not!" Antoine only barely stops himself from doing something foolish like reaching out and grasping Fernando's hand again in a misguided attempt to be earnest. He is older in a general sense, that much is obvious from the exact fit of his clothing and the calmness of his demeanor, but not--Fernando glances up, still grinning at Antoine's expense--too much. 

"...thank you," Fernando is saying, the amusement fading into something more warm. "For indulging me," he adds, when Antoine looks confused. "Both times. I enjoyed it very much." 

"Oh yes, that, you're very welcome," Antoine replies. "You can come--" he motions up the flight of stairs "--and listen. Whenever you like. I live right above." 

Fernando inhales sharply. "I don't..." 

"No really, please." Antoine doesn't quite reach out and touch Fernando's arm, but his hand twitches like he wants to. "Anytime you'd like." 

"I'll think about it." Fernando says after a gap, before he finally unlocks his front door. "It's nice meeting you, Antoine."

//

"And then what?"

"And then _nothing_." Antoine puts his face in his hands and makes a frustrated noise. "He came over, I played some pieces for him, and then we listened to some recordings on the internet." 

"If that's nothing," Rapha says mildly, refilling Antoine's empty glass , "I can't wait to see something." 

They're sitting on the floor of Rapha's apartment balcony overlooking a bustling night market in the north end of Madrid, working their way through a very generous wine sampler his brother had sent him as an early Christmas present. They are halfway through the second and Antoine hasn't stopped chattering since before they opened the first. 

Fernando owns a fitness center and looks like it. Fernando has pretty hands and Antoine would like very much to hold them. Fernando doesn't smile all that much but when he does-- _man_ , it's just a great smile, Rapha. 

"I wanted to say something," Antoine grumbles miserably. "I don't know. Thank him for writing those notes, because they really helped me. Even if he doesn't understand. But I didn't know how." 

"You can thank him in other ways." Rapha says reasonably. "Offer to teach him how to play, if he's interested?" 

"I can't do that!" Antoine says immediately. 

"Why not?" 

"I don't know," he mumbles. "Like, what if he's already really good already?" 

"Really, Antoine," Rapha sighs, biting into a piece of cheese. "What are the chances of that?" 

"You can't--you can't make assumptions like that." Antoine insists. "About people." 

"Okay then." Rapha replies, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Well, doesn't your school have some kind of...showcase? For every end of semester?" 

"Yes?" Antoine scratches his head. "They should?" 

"Take him to that." Rapha says sensibly. "If he likes music or you, he'll go." 

Antoine tries to think of something scathing to say to that but, to his eternal mortification, feels his face turning a bright, burning shade of red. 

Grinning, Rapha raises his phone to eye level and snaps a picture.

//

Fernando comes over on three more occasions before Antoine finally summons the courage to ask him, and even then, he nearly loses his nerve when Fernando hesitates.

"If you have time," he adds quickly. "And if you wanted to. With me. Of course, you don't have to, but I would like it very much if you did." 

He's not proud of the way he sags with relief when Fernando agrees to go, but he's even less proud of the noise he makes when he sees Fernando the night of, shirt collar peeking out from under a dark cashmere sweater so soft Antoine has to shove his hands deep inside his pockets to stop himself from doing something regrettable--like putting his face against it. 

(Whether 'it' refers to the sweater or its wearer, Antoine can't honestly say.) 

Antoine files in with Fernando and the rest of the audience, it all happening without incident until five minutes to showtime when Antoine hears someone shout, "Yo Grizi!!"

It's Koke, three rows behind him, and he has on his face _the most_ maniacally happy expression that Antoine has ever seen--until Koke's gaze travels over to Fernando, who had turned in his seat at the commotion, and then everything drops. His eyes go cartoonishly wide and his jaw hits the floor. It would be comical if Antoine didn't expect better from him. 

"That's Koke," Antoine mumbles, looking away purposefully. "He's my classmate. And friend." 

"I have someone like that in my life." Fernando says sympathetically. He reaches over and pats the back of Antoine's head indulgently and--it's _unfair_ the way it makes Antoine want to curl into him like a cat. 

The room darkens and all the players stand as Simeone stalks across the stage to applause. As he introduces the concert master, Fernando leans over and whispers into Antoine's ear, "You know, it's been almost nine years since I've been here and the only thing that's changed is that he no longer has eyebrows."

Antoine snorts back a laugh at that, and those are the last words spoken between them for the remainder of the concert. 

The Calderon orchestras were usually quite small, with only twelve violins for both the first and seconds, but the sound they produce is as loud and impressive as an orchestra twice their size. It's another reason why he had chosen them--and on top of that, they didn't currently feature a pianist. 

At one point, when the concert master rises to take his [solo](https://youtu.be/SQNymNaTr-Y?t=26m41s), Antoine sneaks a look beside him. Fernando is completely absorbed in the music and Antoine thinks he would give the world to have Fernando look at him the same way. 

The concert ends to rapturous applause, and there's a full ovation before everyone finally starts filing out. Antoine heads up the stage help with the tear down, with apologies to Fernando. The roads were going to be packed for the next hour or so, and making the first years tear down is probably half the reason Simeone had handed them free tickets. 

"Dude!" Koke flies in from out of nowhere and smacks him in the back of the head--hard. Antoine yelps and almost drops the stack of chairs on his foot. 

"What the fuck?!" 

"Who was that you were with?!" Koke demands, eyes bugging out of his sockets. 

"Dude." Antoine says, in disbelief. "That's my neighbor." 

"Your neighbor?!" 

"Yeah, Fernando." 

"His name is _Fernando_?!" 

"Why are you repeating everything I'm saying?!" 

"Dude," Koke grabs Antoine's face and pulls it close. "Your date is Fernando _Torres_." 

Antoine stares back blankly, caught on the word 'date' and then-- "No he's not." 

"Yes he--you don't think I'd recognize--"

"Fernando Torres is in London," Antoine says. Or had it been somewhere else in England? "Besides, my neighbor Fernando owns a gym, or something." 

"Nine Fitness?" Koke presses. 

Antoine blanches. "I have to go." 

"We're talking about this!" Koke yells after him, but Antoine isn't paying attention to him anymore. It seems impossible--or at least improbable that Fernando is the concert pianist Fernando Torres who had come into prominence right when Antoine had started playing. The same one who...went through all that. He dashes out into the entranceway and rounds a few of the curves before he finds him, and the sight that greets him pretty much confirms Koke's suspicions. 

Fernando is talking to Simeone. 

"...I didn't know you were back in Madrid." Simeone is saying as Antoine approaches. His voice is raspier than normal. 

"Milan didn't work out either," Fernando is saying, mouth twisting into a grimace of a smile. "So here I am." Cholo starts to say something else, but then Fernando catches sight of Antoine, huffing and puffing. "Sorry, Cholo," he says, tilting his face toward Antoine. "I think I'm leaving now." 

Simeone turns around. When he sees Antoine standing there, eyes wide, he draws his breath, expression unreadable. And he turns to the side and waves him through. 

"What--" 

"I'll tell you another time." Fernando says, and just like that, the door to the conversation closes gently but with finality.

//

Koke accosts him as soon as he gets off the bus on Monday, and Antoine can only grudgingly admire how the other can get his voice that high or that angry before the sun has even peeked over the horizon.

"You know Fernando Torres?!" Koke bellows in outrage. "You _were on a date_ with _Fernando Torres_??" 

"Can you stop yelling," Antoine hisses, dragging him away. There is only one other person on the morning bus, a girl with large and obvious headphones, but at Koke's volume, the entire campus can probably hear him. Koke promptly ignores him. 

"I let you play my music," he continues, sounding aggrieved. "I let you nap on my backpack. I showed you the deepest, most tender side of me and you never _ONCE_ \--" 

"Oh my god," Antoine interrupts, rolling his eyes. "It wasn't a secret, okay? I didn't know it was him--" 

"YOU DIDN'T KNOW--" Koke's face undergoes a series of hideous transformations. "How could you _not_?!" 

"I was twelve years old the one time I saw him!!" Antoine snaps back hotly. "It wasn't his _face_ I was paying attention to!! Anyway, like I said, he's my neighbor. Sometimes he comes over and listens to me play, I thought--" 

"Wait." Koke holds a hand up, sounding faint. "Fernando Torres goes to listen _you_ play?" 

Antoine take a deep breath, counts to three, and decides that the emphasis is intentionally insulting. Just for that, he relates the whole story--notes and everything--and Koke's apoplectic rage melts away into awed wonderment so quickly that Antoine doesn't even have the heart to hold it against him. And then the moment passes. 

"Actually, can you introduce us?" Koke asks eagerly. "He's kind of my hero." 

At the same moment, Antoine's phone tings.

> _Saúl Ñíguez: _

The two of them would get along well.

Antoine wonders if they know each other. 

(And then wonders which deity he had to pray to in order to assure they never do.)

//

Fernando doesn't come over for an entire week. Antoine tries to be respectful of his space, but when Simeone pulls him aside after class to _give him his cell number_ to pass onto Fernando, using a tone of voice that suggests immediate action, Antoine decides enough is enough. He's knocking on the door before he realizes he's never been inside, and when it opens, the person who greets him is decidedly not Fernando.

For one, he's looks like a caricature of someone on television who frequently goes shirtless on screen. Underneath his sandy blond hair, he has large, blank eyes and--Antoine thinks viciously--a face so long a horse would neigh in recognition. 

"Can I help you?" His voice is so loud it could probably knock a small child over. 

"Yes, I'm looking for Fernando." 

The stranger looks him up and down and up again, eyebrows raised. Then he tilts his head back and calls out--unnecessarily into the apartment where Fernando lives alone--"Yo, Nando! It's for you." 

Fernando's apartment is identical to his own, except for the significantly higher ceilings and the extra wall to separating the living room and his bedroom. It's from behind this wall that Fernando emerges, wan and drained. There's a mirror behind the door and Antoine can see Sergio in the reflection, mouthing wordlessly _are you for fucking real?_

He contemplates turning around and making something of it, but is immediately pacified when Fernando says very pointedly to the other. "Weren't you just leaving?" 

"Of course I was," the other one says with a wide, shit-eating grin. He crosses the room to grab his jacket--a black leather and plaid monstrosity--and waves obnoxiously as he leaves. The door closes and Fernando sighs heavily. 

"Hello Antoine," he says, touching the back of his neck. "How are you?" 

He leads him into the kitchen, where a truly impressive silver espresso machine sit, and starts to fiddle with it. Prior to that moment, he would have guessed Fernando to be a black coffee drinker, but while he makes Antoine a standard cappuccino, he adds ice cream and a good amount of whipped cream to his own. 

"Sorry I haven't been around," he says when they're both seated on opposite ends of his small kitchen table. "We've been in talks to expand for a while now, I only just got back." 

Antoine perks up. "So that was..." 

"My business partner. And a good friend." Fernando answers, with just a hint of long-suffering. He laughs and stares down at his hands, like he doesn't know what to do with them. "Turns out I was good at other things too." 

"I'm sorry," Antoine says automatically and winces. 

"Why?" 

"For pushing you to go to the concert." He taps the curved sides of the mug with his fingertips. "I hadn't thought..." 

"I enjoyed it." Fernando says gently. "And I wouldn't have gone if I hadn't wanted to in the first place." 

They lapse into silence after that, Antoine's mind racing as he thinks about what to say. Unfortunately his mind has been stuck on one thing ever since he made the connection, and now given the opportunity, it barrels to the forefront with a vengeance. 

"Do you ever miss it?" he asks, choosing to be grateful he hadn't asked _how could you give it up?_ instead. 

"The stage? No." Fernando laughs, just a touch bitter. "Too many bad associations. Everything else though? I don't know. It's hard to separate. You know what happened in London." 

Antoine nods. He had followed the story intensely from the moment it broke--the music community is so small and insular, that if you had an interest, you almost couldn't help it. That Fernando Torres, toast of Europe and the world, had switched music houses had been scandalous enough a story, but then following that with being confoundingly unable to reach his previous levels of perfection? The reaction had been merciless in its glee. 

("Carpal tunnel," Fernando tells him much later. "So many others recovered from it, I thought I could too.") 

"When I came back here, to Madrid," Fernando says, "it was one of those things I left behind. Until you moved upstairs." 

"Oh," Antoine says, letting out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. "Sorry." 

"You should be." Fernando says, but with enough of a smile so Antoine knows he's not serious. "You play incessantly, you know. But then, I thought, you must have loved it a lot, to keep playing like that." He glances down at his fingers and curls them under his palms. "I never did." 

"I went to one of your concerts once, when I was young," Antoine replies quietly, after he swallows the lump in his throat. "Could've fooled me." 

He had noticed prior how Fernando tends to shy away from eye contact, but as a result, he had also never realized how affecting it could be, because when they finally catch one another--when Fernando's finally looking at him--it's something else. 

"It wasn't all bad," Fernando concedes. "I still like listening, as it turns out." 

"Well you're still welcome over anytime," Antoine says, relieved. Then, summoning his courage, he reaches into his pocket, pulls out his spare key, and slides it across the table. "And if you ever want to...y'know. Be on the other side of it. You're also welcome to." 

Fernando stares at the key, and then Antoine, for a long, thoughtful pause. Then he takes it.

//

"Are you kidding me?" Koke snorts. "I've known Saul since we were both in the youth summer programs here."

"Yeah," Saul says peering at Antoine with genuine curiosity. "Who do you think told Koke to pick you as his composition partner?" 

Antoine stares between the two of them, Koke with his arm casually slung over Saul's shoulder and not a centimeter of daylight between them. 

" _What the fuck,_ " he mutters and walks away.

//

"Homework?" Fernando sounds scandalized. "Why?"

"They make us take actual classes now, you know." Antoine explains. "Just in case this whole music thing doesn't pan out." 

"Oh, how times change." Fernando sighs and drapes himself over Antoine's shoulder, looking pleased when Antoine pauses to give him an exasperated look. 

"I have to finish this." He says, gesturing to his textbook. 

"So, finish it."  
Glowering, Antoine turns back to his work and _focuses_. Fernando, for his part, doesn't do anything beyond weighing solidly on his back like a giant koala bear. When he finally speeds through the last of his reading, he slams the book shut triumphantly, turns to the unwieldy lump on his back and stops. 

Fernando is staring at him, eyes impossibly soft. 

When Antoine turns his head, lips parted, Fernando finds him.

//

Antoine realizes the normal reaction to finding your apartment broken into isn't unbridled joy, but then again, he's chosen a career where his work is referred to as "playing", so it's not as though the level of normalcy is high to begin with.

A gentle, familiar [melody](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG-vmVrHOGE) greets him as he walks through the door. Bowed over his grand, is Fernando and beside him, is a silver key. 

He doesn't look up. 

Antoine closes the door behind him carefully and steals quietly to the couch where Fernando usually sits.

(Listens.)

**Author's Note:**

> \+ The full playlist is available [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJh9mUjyvdFnOXXKjqqDCcIQBTJnsZCH9), with notes. 
> 
> \+ The title is a line from a poem by Paul Verlaine, also called [Clair de Lune](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_de_Lune_\(poem\)).
> 
> \+ Usually in music conservatories, concert pianists (like Antoine) would have one-on-one sessions with a mentor that culminate with a group session at the end of the week. Due to the desired focus (and my knowledge of Atletico's budget), I changed it. Diego Godin is Antoine's one-on-one instructor. And next year, it will be Fernando. 
> 
> \+ The unmentioned concert master is Mario Mandzukic, whose playing style I feel equates nicely to the violin. "Rodriguez" the opera singer from Antoine's first class is Miriam Rodriguez, a forward from the Atletico women's team. If I had been more careful with time, I would have tried to include TA's Gabi and Tiago, guitar player Filipe Luis, and bass player Jan Oblak. 
> 
> \+ IRL! Fernando Torres does own a gym called Nine Fitness in real life, as well as a vast array of soft!dad cashmere sweaters. 
> 
> \+ Many thanks to [Issa](http://archiveofourown.org/users/myconstant), for being a absolute star of a beta. 
> 
> \+ Shoutout to mis amigos [Mary](http://proximitywithoutintimacy.tumblr.com/), [Shama](http://imaginarybones.tumblr.com), and [Joey](http://kaguava.tumblr.com) for putting up with my whining about this fic for a whole month. 
> 
> \+ And a special thank you to [Luka](http://grizione.tumblr.com) for being an invaluable Atleti resource/enthusiast and jewel of a person. 
> 
> \+ Right now I'm [dybalical](http://dybalical.tumblr.com), but usually I'm [the_queenmaker](http://the-queenmaker.tumblr.com). Full disclosure: I'm a madridista. (:


End file.
